Windows 8 banned by world’s top benchmarking and overclocking site

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

In an odd turn of events, Windows 8 has been banned from HWBot, one of the world’s top benchmarking and overclocking communities. All existing benchmarks recorded by Windows 8 have been disqualified. This is due to a fault in Windows 8’s real-time clock (RTC), which all benchmarking tools use as a baseline.

HWBot is a massive online database of benchmark records, covering most of the major benchmarking tools, such as 3DMark, PCMark, and SuperPi. Users submit their benchmarks, moderators check their results, and then people are awarded points or trophies depending on how they rank. It’s a useful site for seeing how your system/components compare against other setups, but also — as always with such sites — there’s a large number of enthusiast overclockers who rule the charts. Some people take it very seriously: Andre Yang, one of the world’s best overclockers, currently holds the record for the highest CPU frequency (8709 MHz with an AMD FX-8150) and the highest 3D Mark 11 score (37263, with four Nvidia GTX Titans).

In almost every modern computer, there’s a real-time clock (RTC) that keeps accurate track of the time even when the computer is turned off. Usually this is done through some kind of package on the main logic board that just sits there, quietly ticking away the seconds. In modern computers, the RTC is often built into the southbridge. In standalone RTCs, the package usually contains a built-in power source (a battery) that keeps the RTC going, so that the device still shows the right time after experiencing a power cut or being relocated; in the case of your PC, there’s probably a button battery or supercapacitor on the motherboard that keeps the southbridge powered. (As for why your microwave doesn’t contain an RTC to prevent that the Blinking Clock of Doom, who knows…)

The RTC, due to its implemented-in-hardware nature, is very useful for providing a baseline for benchmarks. Unlike software, which can be easily meddled with or affected by outside influences, the RTC in your PC — as the name suggests — is designed to keep pace with real-world time. For every second that ticks by on your quartz-powered wristwatch, a second ticks by inside your PC. Thus, to generate accurate results, benchmarking tools use the RTC to work out exactly when the benchmark started and finished. This is how most benchmarks have always operated, and it’s how every major benchmark operates today.

Unfortunately, though, Windows 8’s RTC isn’t reliable. According to HWBot, Microsoft made some changes to Windows 8’s timekeeping routines to allow for low-cost devices and embedded systems that don’t always have a conventional PC-compatible RTC. HWBot doesn’t give specific details (presumably we’re talking really low-level kernel stuff here), but it proves its point with some damning empirical evidence. Basically, if you change your CPU base clock (BCLK) frequency in software (not at boot time), it has a massive impact on Windows 8’s ability to keep accurate time. By underclocking the BLCK of a Haswell system from 130MHz to 122MHz (-6%), Windows 8 loses 18 seconds over a five minute period (see video above); and the inverse applies to overclocking, too.

This is a problem for benchmarks, because they trust your RTC implicitly — they assume that your system is still keeping accurate time, when in actual fact it isn’t. So, if you run a five-minute benchmark on an underclocked system, the benchmark actually runs for five minutes and eighteen seconds (6% longer). If you boost your multiplier to compensate for the lower BCLK, this means that your computer draws 6% more frames or completes 6% more floating point calculations, resulting in a 6% higher benchmark score. If you underclocked your BCLK by 20%, you would see a 20% gain in the benchmarks, and so on. You can see how this would be a bit of an issue for a benchmarking site like HWBot.

Moving forward, HWBot simply says that it’s “impossible to verify the veracity of a system performance” under Windows 8, and thus benchmarks performed under Windows 8 will no longer be accepted. The blog post also says that all previous Windows 8-based records will be disqualified, though some comments from the moderator suggest that they’re still deciding if this is the best course of action. The moderator also says they don’t think that this flaw in the Windows 8 RTC is being actively exploited, but it’s obviously a case of better-safe-than-sorry.

For Microsoft’s part, this issue can probably be fixed with a patch, though it might be difficult given Windows 8’s cross-platform nature. It will be interesting to see how quickly Microsoft responds, because benchmarking tools really have no recourse without an accurate RTC. Having an entire operating system outlawed from one of the world’s biggest benchmarking sites is a big deal. For now, PC enthusiasts have yet another reason to stick with Windows 7.

Tagged In

This is a problem that MS will have to face. You are right, how they respond is very telling.

Borden

Microsoft respond?
Holy shit you must not remember the Xbox one fiasco.

Collin

And how they reversed their decision on every major point of that?
– No more always-online DRM
– Discs behave the same way they did before
– Just announced you don’t have to keep the kinect plugged in.

Borden

Exactly my point,it took them long enough to respond even after the twitter PR stunt by Mr.”Just Deal With It!”
But yeah they changed their release format slightly but it does not mean they will not change it later on when everyone has “one” in their living room.
And then dealing with it will be all you can do.
I am happy with my 1 year old custom gaming PC.

MattM123

By long enough, do you mean several weeks? And it wasn’t a slight format change, it was an overhaul of their initial system. And then you’re just clutching at straws by saying “Oh yeh, but they might do it in the future!”.

Borden

I am cool with “clutching at straws”.
“Question everything” is my motto,and it keeps me ticking and kicking.
“An overhaul of their initial system “I doubt it was that much work.
Just ask the “coders” and EA about how SimShitty could never be played off-line,and in a week and a few tweaks later and all of a sudden anyone could play off-line.

Chuckles

The only reason they responded was that Sony shoved a big one up their backside.

Borden

*Fist Bump*

topgun966

Ya, MSFT responded very quickly ( I think it was a matter of a few days) to the “fiasco” to give the community what it wants. I think there are other factors here that are not taken into account. Like I am sure win8 uses NTP to keep your clocked matched up pretty well. MSFT is expecting that their devices will be connected majority of the time to hit a NTP server. This in turn renders the RTC useless.

aidanjt

NTP was designed to correct jitter of a handful of seconds every few weeks. If a system clock is losing seconds to the minutes, then NTP wont help that unless you start polling servers at an unacceptable rate.

Borden

Windows 8 was recently banned from over-clocking sites for those reasons.

DarthDana

NTP doesn’t poll continuously. Usually only every few minutes. Benchmarking relies on a continuously accurate clock over a few seconds.Also there is a certain amount of error in NTP due to network latency and other factors. It does a pretty good job of accounting for that but it’s not accurate enough to be used for benchmarking. Also, the article is a little misleading about the RTC. It actualy “ticks’ many times a second, maybe several thousand. Not sure exactly what the rate is, though.

3 Percenter

Have you seen W8 on dial up?? Now that is a fiasco. The system literally demands a broadband connection. So using NTP server is not the most feasible solution. I was not a fan of W8 and am still not convinced. 5 steps to turn it off.
But realistically who really goes and muddles with the BIOS that much? Average Joe User can turn the machine on but don’t ask for anything else.

http://soundcloud.com/seraphiansounds Jordan Dietrich

I haven’t seen W8 on dial up. I also never saw Windows 7, Vista, XP, or ME on dial up.

kzin53

what’s dial-up?

Logan

Before you answer that, can anybody tell me what XP is??

Random

You can still get a dial-up connection?

SurvivalPolicy™

Yeah. Try netlimiter: http://www.netlimiter.com/
I believe 56Kbps was a popular speed before. Try and limit your connection to 56Kbps.

Chris W

haha I remember 56kbps. *Click*… make coffee… sit around a bit… Page loads! rinse and repeat.

Xplorer4x4

“5 steps to turn it off.”
Actually, it’s 3 steps, just like it has been since Win 95. In Win 95/98 you had to click the start button, click shut down in the start menu, then you got a pop up asking if you wanted to shut down, click yes, and your done. Win XP changed this slightly but it was simply a GUI tweak. The pop up offered reboot, shut down, and suspend options with out the use of a drop down menu. Vista changed this again. Now we had to open the start menu, hit a button with an arrow, then choose Shut Down. That shut down command suddenly became tucked away inside a menu. Fast forward to Windows 8. Drag your mouse to the bottom right corner. No need to click, but it is essentially the same motion as going to the start menu from pre-Win 8, just a different direction. The charms menu slides in. You click the power button and get a small text menu asking you shut down or reboot.

since there are many ways to shutdown – if you choose the most inefficient method, then i say you are the problem.

http://webwindow.markagius.co.uk Mark A.

“1 steps to turn it off.”
Turn it off at the mains or remove the battery if it’s a laptop.
If that doesn’t work you can turn it off with a sledgehammer.
It may take a bit longer to turn it on the next time thou.

Are you people learning how to turn off a Win 8 machine?! Go to the Charm Bar and click on POWER

Bryan_S

And now I am insanely glad I used Server 2k8 r2 for my WR run…
Cinebench 45.3 :)

Joseph Oliveira

I never heard anyone say 2k8 r2….. Just 2008 R2.

http://www.google.com/profiles/moneta.mace Mace Moneta

Using a device driver, couldn’t the benchmark do direct I/O to port 70 to read the RTC themselves, instead of the Windows maintained value?

Marcus2012

My thing is, why don’t they just contact an atomic clock online, the moment the message gets back they can start the benchmark (and adjust it between arrival time and the time it actually started, it’d only be a few milliseconds but still).

Wolfgame

A few milliseconds is significant in the competitive benchmarking world…

Marcus2012

Hence adjusting the time to counteract it… -_-

Wolfgame

Using a third party timekeeper, especially one potentially halfway around the world would invalidate the scores. Also, in order to accurately compensate for the times, the route to said time keeper would have to be set in stone and be of the utmost reliability. The Internet isn’t designed to be reliable, it’s designed to be resilient, and things like NTP are more patches than solutions.

Adding environmental factors to the benchmark can screw with the time significantly. In addition, bad routes, hardware & software load balancers,and DNS round-robin records can add additional delays to the data on top of that, just to name a few potential problems. And let’s not forget the obvious … falsifying the time. Using accurate timekeepers on the physical hardware itself is how these scores are calculated. Oh and of course, adding additional load can affect the score as well.

What Microsoft did was apply a patch to a problem on one platform, invalidating a solution on another.

The solution is for Windows to look for a time keeper on the system and implement its own only when one isn’t available.

Marcus2012

It’s like you don’t understand that along with the time, the servers would send the exact moment the packet left, which could then be used to correct it.

Obviously the computers own time would be the number fucking one choice, but to say OSes don’t already synchronize their time with atomic clocks is asinine.

http://skyledavis.blogspot.com/ S. Kyle Davis

Yes, because Microsoft should change the way they manage low-power devices because it affects benchmarking scores. That makes sense.

MS has been far too aggressive with it’s sleep/idle states and lack of interrupts and it’s been affecting professional applications and your average desktop user alike.

MS really needs to bifurcate their OS, and the sooner the better.

Jim

I’m sorry, but I’ve been using Windows 8 since the previews on multiple machines and haven’t noticed any problems. And I use these machines heavily for gaming, programming, video editing, etc. I can’t help but think this is totally overblown.

pelov lov

It isn’t and it varies depending on hardware, but even the MS employee acknowledged it’s an issue.

The DPC latency and RTC problems are independent of each other, but there’s a single reason for the both of them: overly aggressive powersaving features.

The RTC not “ticking” allows certain hardware to sit in deep sleep. This in turn decreases battery life on mobile devices by a good amount. All good, right? Well, not so fast. For workstations and servers that are time sensitive, it can be a significant problem. With the rise of software overclocking, many folks just don’t bother with BIOS fiddling anymore, but that’s exactly the sort of tweaking that causes problems with Win8’s RTC. Now imagine if you were running a home server with timestamped information and you decreased voltage and clock to decrease power consumption and heat. And what if you were running a time-sensitive application on your Win8 workstation that you overclocked for more performance? The decrease in power consumption isn’t a freebie, and presents some potentially serious issues for non-mobile Win8 users.

The DPC latency issue is still very much around. This, too, was done to decrease power consumption of the entire platform by forcing sleep/idle, but for a good portion of folks it’s also increased the latency significantly and caused audio to go out of whack or snap, crackle, and pop. Again, for desktop and workstation folks – especially those doing any sort of professional audio/video – this becomes a huge issue. Bear in mind that Windows has historically always had second-rate DPC latency when compared to Apple’s OSes, but now it’s gotten even worse.

These are all symptoms of an underlying problem. While many folks may not see them, it certainly doesn’t mean they aren’t there and nor are they symptoms that can be overlooked. These are symptoms of MS’s push into mobile and just what they had to sacrifice in order to get Windows onto a tablet.

People tend to focus on the Metro interface and argue their sides’ points relentlessly but they overlook or ignore the other positives and negatives that makes Windows 8. Unfortunately for us desktop/workstation folk, there are a lot more negatives than there are positives and some of those sacrifices made to get Win8 to tablets are too large and too many to ignore.

Marcus2012

Are you stupid? Windows 8 doesn’t keep proper time because of a bug they introduced with Windows 8, this affects everything from CPU speed and power usage, to banking…

Henry Young

This is also a massive security flaw.

It will also affect any number of other programs.

Sensia

I am not a comupter expert, but the small battery isn’t t culprit I gather from this article, but the RTC program that is part of the system?

Marcus2012

The actual problem is how they read RTC time, so yes, it’s a software issue (hence it being a Windows 8 ban, instead of a specific model of computer ban.)

jrb

I’d be interested to hear why it doesn’t affect all hardware configurations then. Not that Im doubting you, I literally would like to hear.

I’ve been running soft-over clocking that set the base clock speed for some time and have never noticed such time drift.

Marcus2012

Because Windows 8 miscounts the time on a sub-second time scale, while Linux, Windows 7, etc don’t.

Marcus2012

Also, I don’t have access to Windows source code, so I couldn’t tell you in any more depth than the obvious, sorry.

Naipier

But but but…Mocrosoft would NEVER fudge numbers to make their newest OS look better than older OSes so they could gin up more sales… microsoft is way too honest to do such a thing. Next, we’ll be hearing some malarky that the NSA is spying on the citizens its suposed to protect.

Will McCullough

Going to try to be nice here.

Try reading the article and you’ll see that they didn’t fudge anything. They rewrote their timing core in order to better service low powered devices. Just think about that the next time your Android or iDevice runs out of juice quickly. At least they are trying to be mobile conscious. I’m not even a Microsoft guy and I can see that they didn’t do anything intentionally here.

Naipier

I understand what you’re saying, the reason for my reaction is I live in microsoft’s backyard (so to speak), I get to hear all the BS claims regarding the newest and latest OS they’ve developed… and one of the claims that has been made is that windows 8 is the top benchmarking OS out there. You’ll have to forgive my omission of that detail.

How does this affect the average everyday consumer though? I guess this really affects the techy folks? Those who need very accurate numbers when using these benchmarking tools? Again, I had asked earlier, but this isn’t the actual hardware? But the program associated with the real time clock? I am just asking since I am not a techy person, I have some limited knowledge. But I am genuinely interested in knowing.

Abu Bamsry

Think about it. A flaw / loop-hole / “work-around” was found for very important part of how you market your device. Consumers purchase items based on recommendations from experts and reviews of those products. Even with this being unintentional (which I believe), it doesn’t mean it will not be exploited to help revenue, etc… It is might even have been used to do that already (or was until the benchmarking site said no more), by that was going to be a likely unintended outcome.

Image Tom’s Hardware, or Maximum PC, or something else running tests…
MAC OS vs. Windows 8 vs. {Insert Linux Distro. Here}, and Windows always comes up top on tests. I can see Microsoft setting up a PC to do that, and under-clocking it submission to this test. Look at that whole thing with the Windows Phone, and claiming it will boot faster and load any information you need faster than any other phone OS on the market. If all the top PCs are running Windows 8 (as recorded in the benchmarking, that will allow a false claim to superiority). This would lead to non-expert consumers buying what they see as the best of breed.

Also compare this to say a more mature product. The automobile. Estimated MPG. There are guidelines on how those “performance” tests are run. How about Brake or Wheel HP? There are guidelines on those as well, but that doesn’t stop marketing from exaggerating. Why do you think magazines like R&T, C&D, etc… state both Manufacturer Estimated MPG, and the as-tested results.

One of three things have to happen now:
1) The way tests are run, validated, and based are changed to reflect this new exploit. One suggestion already was to directly talk to the RTC instead of through the OS.
2) Microsoft Patch this. Which is unlikely and still not a solution. Anyone with an non-patched OS would still be able to do this, and would the benchmark company be able to filter those out?
3) Boycott Windows 8.

Ray C

I’m not sure “don’t buy this because I can’t be certain I’ll get acurate benchmarks if I overclock my system” is a good example of expert advice. People will take advice, but at the end of the day will make a decision based on if they know anyone else who has the product and possibly playing around with a demo system in the store. And to be honest if any so-called expert is influencing people not to buy because of something most people are not going to do, they should not be giving advice.

NicolaMantovani

Except windows 8 performs consistently better than windows 7 on the same hardware, you can’t fudge stuff like that.

Jim

Did you not read the damned article? This is only a problem if you’re overclocking your system. And even then, only if you’re overclocking via software while the OS is running (as opposed to in the BIOS settings).

David

From my understanding, as long as you aren’t over or underclocking your baseclock or multiplier it won’t directly affect you. (except as Abu describes)

Us “techies” as you say (we would probably say enthusiast) like to squeeze the most power out of our systems (overclock), or only sip the minimum amount of power (underclock) and then we want to see who has the bigger stick (benchmarking).

Now I’m stepping on ground that I don’t truly understand but you are correct that the software is not interprutting the hardware correctly. The RTC is implemented by the motherboard manufacturer. As the article states it’s usually located in your southbridge which is one of the logic chips built into your motherboard (northbridge is the other one) The southbridge is typically responsible for your inputs and outpunts (I/Os) such as PCI ports, USB Ports, your BIOS, IDE Drives etc. But the Windows 8 Kernel is the one that has to interpret and it isn’t doing it right if the CPU is not at stock.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but hopefully this gives you a little better idea.

Andrew Garson

What you should care about is that this is another case where microsofts changes in support of mobile have adversely affected PC users. They insist on one operating system, but it doesn’t behave well on a traditional desktop.

Something in the new timing code for windows 8 has caused the RTC to be affected by over/under clocking. They probably took some shortcut in order to save on power consumption for mobile devices. This may be an appropriate choice for mobile, but not likely for desktop.

Ray C

But most people aren’t going to care. If I was to go to most average people or some of my clients and say “well they changed something, so I can’t properly benchmark it after overclocking” they’d look at me like I’m crazy or say “overclocking? ” benchmark?” I think this is another example of people looking for something to make a big fuss about. I’d guess the percentage of people who check benchmarks is not large, and even within that group most people are either looking at someone else’s benchmark results on a website or they’re looking at benchmarks primarily of either individual components or from a variety of sources.

Andrew Garson

You’re right. Most people don’t care. What windows users should care about though is the push for mobile at the expense of pc. The push towards locked down appliances over more open desktops. THIS is why I don’t use windows unless required by work

Jorgie

In my opinion you have it completely wrong. I pay for the power my desktop uses, so I want my desktop systems to save power too.

From what I can see, this issue does not adversely affect desktop users unless they are over or under clocking their machines. This is not NORMAL computer use. It also looks like if you make your clocking changes, and then reboot and do not make any changes during the session, everything is fine. The only thing that is lost is that benchmarking programs cannot rely on OS provided reading from the RTC. The benchmark creators will adapt, as they always do.

Jonathan Briggs

It might be normal computer use, if the computer is running the software shipped with some motherboards. Running the software that comes shipped with the hardware seems pretty normal to me.

Gigabyte, for example, provides a bit of software which dynamically adjusts clock rates and power draw on the motherboard itself. This is much more than just the CPU clock.

Jorgie

That is true, and as long and they set it and then reboot they will never notice. Not many people adjust their machines in this way. We went through similar issues when intel first introduced speed-step because it messed with some programs that expected the cpu to always run at the same speed.

Pagefault

Laptops are PCs too, and I care about battery life on my laptop. To a lesser degree, I care about not wasting power on my desktop PC as well, so I support the rearchitecting they did here.
That said, it seems like they should be able to take overclocking into account and fix the skew. I expect this will likely get patched.

Henry Young

This opens up a massive security risk as well as meaning any number of programs could behave in the wrong way.

anonymous

The RTC is typically accessed via kernel provided functions..Fudge those, and you fudge the entire bench. It might help save power, but it does screw with timing sensitive applications. things like audio/video, games, media streaming services, scientific analyses (though the latter probably use an external RTC). microsoft needs to release a desktop variant for desktops and a tablet variant for tablets. Even tweaking the linux kernel requires a recompile to target specific types of devices.

Only worrying about the average consumer is a race to the bottom. I wish marketers would stop focusing solely on that. It creates shitty products and a shitty lifestyle for everyone.

MadisonHJ

Leave it to MSFT to screw up a clock. LOL

James Tolson

ROFPMSL… Another thing Microshaft has changed, i had to read this article twice and even then check the date make sure it was not an april fools joke..

Here’s wot to expect in WINDOW 9 (retailing for 199.99)

After 5 minutes of boot time you will have 1 (just one) touch box.. Microshaft App STORE

the only things included as standard will be an TCP/ipstack/networking, Firewall and a basic version (yet somehow even more bloated) of Internet explorer

The Os will not support current hardware on the market and will require a 10 core 5ghz processor by default, 8gb min but 16gb ram recommended and probabily a direct3d 12 capable gpu minimum… even then it will use 90% of resources at run time

Window 9 (non plural) will be ad supported (so expect banners n popups) by default and multitasking will be on a pay per task micropayment policy

and ill still be using windows XP

Kellen Dunkelberger

except windows boot times have only gotten better and better.

Andrew Garson

True, but they have a long way to go. I get ~15s boots on my Mac when booting osx. The windows partition on the same machine takes ~3min. This is from picking which to load until chrome is open and ready. Exact same hardware. Windows just preloads too much, even after I’ve turned a bunch of stuff off at boot.

Joel Hruska

If your OS takes 3 minutes to load, it’s not Windows’ fault. I boot faster than three minutes off a hard drive. With an SSD, it’s under a minute.

skylr616

If it takes you 3m to boot in to Windows then something is wrong… my computer takes about 20s to boot and that is with a relatively long POST (about 3-5s or so… haven’t timed it).

That is with an SSD so I’d expect most people to be in the 30-40s mark on 7200RPM HDD (assuming they don’t have other apps causing problems).

Pagefault

My Surface Pro boots in 8 seconds. Seriously.

James Tolson

yes that is true, but window 9 will require a constant internet connection, so if u take into account that during bootup you will get spammed by dialog boxes saying “windows cannot locate Microsoft server, please check your internet connection” and the only option is retry or cancel (logoff) then boot times will be many times longer than today if able to boot at all :-)

NicolaMantovani

you are batshit crazy, rofl.

James Tolson

im sorry it’s taken me 7 hours to reply to that, I went out to meet some friends for a few beers, hooked up with 2 bi girls.. invited them back to mine for a party (just the three of us).. im sure u can guess wot we been up to (without been crude).. decided now they are sleeping to gloat to friends on facebook, and thought while im at it i would reply to your comment while im at the computer..

reading the 70 odd other comments of people arguing at how fast their computer loads i realize you are absolutely right.. im completely out of my mind Crazy :-S lmao

disclaimer – im half cooked on alcohol and so usually never type stuff on the interwebs.. so no offense if read out of context :-)

kzin53

agree

NicolaMantovani

You clearly have no clue of what you are talking about, and the fact you still use xp proves it.

James Tolson

i do, i have a crystal ball i can see the future :-P

kzin53

crystal ball or crystal?

InsGadget

HOLY CRAP U SO FUNNY!!!!!1

spam

I’m assuming we just got through reading an advertorial? An issue for which no real data was provided (just empirical observation), but now we do know with certainty who claims to be the top overclocking web site, and who the top overclocker is on that site?

Joel Hruska

So videos, screenshots, and published results are an “advertorial?” Perhaps you would like an MS empoyee to come to your house and demonstrate in preson?

Jeff Tiberend

Just more evidence that Windows 8 should have been an improved version of Windows 7 and that Windows Metro/Tablet should have been left separate. Apple is smart enough to not try to do that with their computers. People should not be forced to use a desktop or laptop computer as if it was tablet.

Ray C

What exactly does this have to do with the interface? THe issue is the RTC

Midnight Distortions

It’s the fact they should have left the UI separated to begin with. They most likely changed the timing core because tablets are most likely a different interface for this kind of thing.

Raptor007

I agree about the Windows 8 UI, but Apple has been dumbing down OS X as well. You can see that iOS has already started leaking into Lion (see: App Store, Launchpad, and Application Resume features). I guess I can understand why the big OS makers would prefer appeasing the idiots over catering to power users, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

roger crouch

You can cause the same crap in windows 7 anyway.
They fuxed the code in both.

David Kaplan

“Having an entire operating system outlawed from one of the world’s biggest benchmarking sites is a big deal.”

How so? I’d say 99.999% of PC users could care less. It might be a big deal within the overclocking community… but not for most people.

Henry Young

Its also a big deal for security reasons. Having an accurate clock is essential for computers to function correctly.

skylr616

“…essential for computers to function correctly.”

I think that, in the context of the comment you are replying to, that this is an extreme exaggeration. If it was THAT essential to computers functioning correctly (within the margins of error that this flaw causes) then there would be noticeable issues already plaguing end users. They are not (yet, anyways).

That Feel

So why not just overclock in the BIOS? Software overclocking is balls.

someDude

Doesn’t make sense… everything talked about here is hardware based… the RTC in the SouthBridge, how it keeps time, etc. Then talking about Haswell based machines exhibiting this behavior because of under/overclocking, etc. Seems like this issue would be present in every OS that reads the RTC because the under/overclocking is the bit that’s throwing the RTC off, not Windows 8.

Daniel Smith

You people are looking at this ALL WRONG! Microsoft didn’t mess up the RTC… What they DID do was figure out time travel! Clearly Win 8 replaces your backup battery with a tiny wormhole which allows for these selective time adustments. Forget overclocking your pc, now you can overclock THE WOOOOORLD!

Mark Rejhon

As a compromise, have Microsoft provide an API what kind of RTC is being used. If so, then benchmarks can trust the RTC only if it matches a trusted RTC. That way, the benchmarks can unlock themselves only on those Windows 8 machines with full accuracy RTC that doesn’t degrade accuracy during underclock situations.

Marcus2012

It’s not the RTC that’s the problem, it’s Microsoft’s timer, which is used for ALL time keeping in Windows, therefore there’s no on off switch, you’ll have to work around the issue until they fix it, no matter what.

Why would MS respond? Is OC benchmarks that important? They care way more about cross platform compatiblity

Amort

Don’t be mistaken only thing they care is to get more money.

Henry Young

Any software could be affected by this as well. This also opens up big security flaws.

Jeff

I’m running windows 8 and all seems well with my clock. been running it for 3 minutes or so and still insync perfectly with my android stopwatch

http://www.topfiveawards.com/ Top Five Awards

Thing is, lets say Microsoft patches the Windows 8, they still can’t accept those submissions because the user could be running an unpatched Win8 exploiting the flaw.

Won Word

“Having an entire operating system outlawed….”

Woah! Do you know if it is a felony or just a misdemeanor? Also, what if you take that OS across state lines; do the Feds then get involved??

Words, how do they work?

SPM

They haven’t outlawed Windows 8, they have disqualified the flawed benchmark results relating to Windows 8 because of the incorrect RTC.

danx3

the things fat loser nerds get angry about

dreamss

win8 dynamic timer disable: BCDEDIT /SET DISABLEDYNAMICTICK YES

this is the same issue where wintimertester reports different ratios and latencymon is broken.. also use hpet :p

thx1138v2

The RTC is hardware built into the mobo as either a standalone device or part of the southbridge. What does the OS, or any software for that matter, have to do with how the RTC runs? If changing the bus or cpu speeds changes the clock rate that would seem to me to be a mobo design error. I’ve never designed a mobo but I’ve designed and used RTC’s in circuits and I fail to see what Windows or any OS would have to do with the functionality of a properly designed RTC hardware circuit.

dreamss

the timer in windows is a mix of hardware and software timer (software timer is what gets messed up by OC) :p since the timer is done at windows boottime and changing clock speed after that meeses up with the wintimer

also windows 8 added dynamic timers which mess with benchmarks

thx1138v2

Ah, that clears it up. So the RTC hardware doesn’t really have anything to do with the problem. If I understand you correctly you are saying the benchmarking systems rely on the software timers of the OS they are benchmarking for the timing of the benchmarks of the hardware and software they are judging. I always did have a problem understanding how software only could benchmark a system without having an external hardware component for accurate timing. I get it now. Thanks.

Windows 8 is meant for tablets, it introduces significant changes to the operating system’s platform, primarily focused towards improving its user experience on mobile devices such as tablets to better compete with other mobile operating systems like Android and Apple’s iOS. But Windows 8 developed for personal computer.

Really? go thell that to Data, he would tell you that a micro second is a life time in the life of an Android.

Midnight Distortions

Personally i agree with removing Windows 8 as too many people are saying it’s much faster than Windows 7 and basically this article is proving that Win 8 is not any faster than 7.

Robert Lindabury

“For now, PC enthusiasts have yet another reason to stick with Windows 7.”

I’m an enthusiast and I don’t give a flying F about this issue and it won’t keep me from putting Windows 8 on more of my PC’s.

It’s a non-issue unless you’re attempting to be listed at the top of some useless benchmarking leaderboard.

http://www.itrush.com/ IT Rush

Hmm, sticking with w7.. no doubt about it.

darks

Another reason for me to not use Windows Hate!
Drive another nail in that Coffin M$!

Renee Cousins

One more reason I choose to stick with Windows 7; Microsoft is all to eager to please the “mainstream” by dumbing-down their OS to the point where professionals will be unable to stomach the experience. Maybe it’s time to bring back a new Windows Workstation based off the server versions and remove all the Metro apps, wacky timers and ultra-low-power states that have no place or relevance on my tower.

cr_buck

Trusting the real time clock on a PC is a bad idea in the first place. I’ve had 70 identical Dell systems that you could watch in the BIOS, no Windows involved, that over the course of a few minutes some clocks would be off by 30 seconds compared to others. The quality of the RTC varies wildly between manufacturers and models. The RTC in PC is only reliable for providing a constant consistent tick but not a reliable one when it comes to a clock. If they want to be more reliable benchmark it should rely on an outside certified time source, maybe a root NTP server and compare the clock at the start and end of the test. Otherwise, tests will never be that accurate.

cr_buck

Trusting the real time clock on a PC is a bad idea in the first place. I’ve had 70 identical Dell systems that you could watch in the BIOS, no Windows involved, that over the course of a few minutes some clocks would be off by 30 seconds compared to others. The quality of the RTC varies wildly between manufacturers and models. The RTC in PC is only reliable for providing a constant consistent tick but not a reliable one when it comes to a clock. If they want to be more reliable benchmark it should rely on an outside certified time source, maybe a root NTP server and compare the clock at the start and end of the test. Otherwise, tests will never be that accurate.

http://twitter.com/jdrch jdrch

The funny thing is that the original post was updated to show that the issue exists for Win 8 Intel systems only. AMD CPU systems are unaffected. But yeah ban the entire OS, that makes sense. Thanks for this article, I now know to boycott HWBOT for their sheer stupidity.

http://twitter.com/jdrch jdrch

The funny thing is that the original post was updated to show that the issue exists for Win 8 Intel systems only. AMD CPU systems are unaffected. But yeah ban the entire OS, that makes sense. Thanks for this article, I now know to boycott HWBOT for their sheer stupidity.

Trae Barlow

I’m just going to point out something obvoius. This doesn’t only effect overclockers, is there any info on how “intelli-step” or w/e power saving technique that uses multiplier adjusting is behaving with this bug in place?

Charles

Lame article. Microsoft has no reason to respond to such dribble.

jschultejans

One more fix for 8.1 to answer for…

kevgr5

I will keep my fast as shit windows 8 and not use hardware bot , or any other dumbass benchmark﻿ , the enthusiast is a dying breed now thanks to Intel’s new chip direction and amd cutting the FX line !

Mombasa69

It’s ok if you’re just using a bog-standard PC, but Windows 8 hates Custom Gaming PC’s.

Believe it or not, when you configure Windows 8 correctly, it’s not too bad. I still prefer Windows 7 though.

Mombasa69

Windows 8 in classic desktop mode crashes at least once a day, flash is totally unstable and will crash if I use youtube or use the browser so had to disable it. I’ve upgraded to 8.1 still the same problem.

Although if I just use the Windows 8.1 new OS and don’t use the classic desktop, I have no problems.

May even re-install Windows 7 if this problem persists.

Travis Hughes

Strange. You sure it isn’t hardware related? I use Windows 8 in classic desktop mode exclusively on my work PC and i never have any crashes. Flash works just fine.

Zider

“Yet another reason”? I haven’t seen any good reasons so far. And enthusiast doesn’t have to mean overclocker either.

zakir

How to make a time table for internet in my pc for control internet adiction of my kids

novel_compound

“For every second that ticks by on your quartz-powered wristwatch…”

Quartz oscillators are used to keep time, but they do not “power” the timepiece.

Luke

I don’t think it’s a problem with Microsoft’s RTC, I think Android’s Stopwatch was timing too fast, because if you watch the seconds on the YouTube video and the seconds on the stopwatch, you’ll find that the stopwatch runs slightly quicker than the video’s own timer.

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

ExtremeTech Newsletter

Subscribe Today to get the latest ExtremeTech news delivered right to your inbox.